Contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security dodged more than $1 million in fines from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for criticality safety violations in 2017 and 2018 at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee.
At issue were accumulations of fissile material in processing equipment housed in Building 9212, the Cold War-era uranium processing facility at the Oak Ridge weapons site, according to a notice of preliminary enforcement dated April 6, 2020, to Consolidated Nuclear Security CEO Morgan Smith from NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty.
There was more fissile material present in the building’s knockout glove box, Holden gas furnace, and casting line than the site’s criticality safety evaluation assumed would be present, the notice says. Those conditions could lead to an accidental fission chain reaction — though they did not, in these cases. The contractor produces the uranium-powered secondary stages of nuclear weapons in Building 9212, as part of its management of Y-12 and the NNSA’s Pantex Plant in Texas.
In her letter, Gordon-Hagerty said CNS also botched its response to correcting these prohibited accumulations, including by not complying with the so-called “inadvertent accumulation prevention program” the company itself created to prevent unwanted pileups of fissile material.
In all, the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency hit CNS with 13 violations of federal nuclear safety and procedural regulations under Title 10, Parts 820 and 830 of the Code of Federal Regulations. But Gordon-Hagerty took it easy on CNS, citing the company’s “willingness to recognize the problem areas” — some of which have gone unaddressed since before the vendor took over the site in 2014 — and then essentially giving the contractor credit for time served.
“NNSA reduced the contract fee that was awarded to CNS in the fiscal year 2018 performance evaluation by approximately $800,000 in response to the deficiencies in criticality safety,” Gordon-Hagerty wrote in the preliminary notice of violation. “In consideration of the mitigating factors, and the fee previously withheld, NNSA proposes no civil penalty for the violations cited.”
A spokesperson said CNS was still considering the violations identified in Gordon-Hagerty’s notice, and would not say whether the company would contest any of the NNSA’s findings.
“In all instances, CNS paused operations while executing corrective actions to address identified issues and conduct extent of condition reviews,” the spokesperson wrote. “During this time, CNS cooperated with the Department of Energy Office of Enforcement while continuing to aggressively address the underlying causes of the accumulations it self-identified across its facilities and programs.”
The antinuclear activist group Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, which circulated a copy of the notice of preliminary violation, said the NNSA was scapegoating Consolidated Nuclear Security and trying to wash its own hands of responsibility for the violations at Y-12.
“This Preliminary Notice of Violation is only the tip of the iceberg,” Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said in a statement. “It appears to be NNSA’s effort to pass the buck to its contractor, blaming them for not acting on this since they took over in 2014. Where has NNSA been all this time? Do they think throwing CNS under the bus absolves them of their failure to provide oversight?”
The report landed at an awkward time for CNS.
The NNSA is still deciding whether to pick up another two-year option on its management and operations contract that covers both Y-12, and Pantex. The NNSA said it was delaying the decision, possibly through June, because senior agency leaders were busy coping with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The agency previously expected to make the decision by the end of March.
Consolidated Nuclear Security was notably the only NNSA site management contractor that did not receive its 2019 performance evaluation report earlier this year. The agency has said it will not issue the document until it decides whether to pick up the penultimate options on the contract option.
The option would extend CNS through Sept. 30, 2023. The NNSA picked up the contract’s first two-year option in 2018, keeping the Bechtel-led team on the job through Sept. 30, 2021. CNS’ contract is worth roughly $2 billion annually. The deal’s five-year base was worth more than $7.8 billion.
The company has been criticized since picking up the NNSA Production Office contract for failing to deliver on promised cost savings. The NNSA put the two sites under one contract in hopes of saving money by combining administrative and financial reporting systems at the two plants.
